Tony Barrow

• 1. Introduction

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  Tony Barrow, the English press officer who worked with the Beatles from 1962 to 1968, coined the phrase "the Fab Four". He first used it in an early press release. Barrow did not start out as a famous insider. He began as a part-time helper, writing from behind a desk at a rival record company. How did a Liverpool teenager with a newspaper column end up speaking for the Beatles? What did the job actually demand when fans and reporters wanted everything at once? And what became of Barrow when the band no longer needed a publicist?

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• 2. Crosby Beginnings

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  In the late 1950s, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were still teenagers, putting together their earliest group in one part of Liverpool. Across town, in the south Lancashire suburb of Crosby, Tony Barrow was staging shows by jazz bands and skiffle-folk groups at local dance halls and clubs.

  Anthony F. J. Barrow was born on the 11th of May 1936. He was educated close to home at Merchant Taylors School and later studied languages at Durham University.

  In 1954, aged 17 and still a sixth-form schoolboy, he won his first regular freelance writing job. He reviewed pop and rock records for the Liverpool Echo, which was the largest-selling provincial evening newspaper in the UK. That weekly habit would outlast his move to London, and it would soon catch the attention of a Liverpool record retailer.

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• 3. Decca and Epstein

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  At the start of the 1960s, while the Beatles played the clubs of Hamburg, Barrow left Crosby for London and the Decca Record Company. His job there was writing the liner notes printed on the back of LP album covers. From his new base he kept sending in his weekly record column to the Liverpool Echo.

  At the end of 1961, the record retailer Brian Epstein signed the Beatles to a management deal and contacted Barrow for professional advice. In a 1968 interview, Barrow recalled that Epstein asked him to write a column about the band. Barrow then arranged an audition for the group at Decca, and Decca turned them down.

  The rejection led to an unusual arrangement. Barrow became the Beatles' part-time press and publicity consultant, promoting a new EMI act from a desk at a rival London label.

  His first assignment for Epstein came in October 1962. It was a media campaign around the group's first UK single, "Love Me Do", released on EMI's Parlophone label. For compiling the initial press kit, he received a one-off freelance fee of £20. That small payment would soon be dwarfed by an offer Epstein made the following spring.

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• 4. Inside NEMS

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  In May 1963, Barrow left Decca after Epstein promised to double his salary. He joined Epstein's new artists' management company, NEMS Enterprises, as a full-time employee and opened its first London office. As head of the Press and Public Relations Division, he promoted far more than the Beatles. Cilla Black, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer with the Dakotas and The Fourmost were all on his list.

  Because he had written liner notes at Decca, everyone took it for granted that he would write them for the Beatles and the other NEMS acts too.

  On the 13th of October 1963, the Beatles appeared on Sunday Night at the London Palladium. Barrow marks that evening as the start of Beatlemania. Before it, he had to chase the press. After it, journalists came looking for him. The sudden surge of attention also brought a growing pile of fan mail, and the replies were falling behind.

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• 5. Christmas Records

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  The Beatles were three weeks behind in answering membership applications for their fan club. Barrow feared the delay would damage the group's reputation, so he went looking for a goodwill gesture.

  He thought of the Queen, who sent Yuletide greetings to her subjects every year on UK radio and TV. The Beatles, he decided, should "follow her fine example but in their own way". Every member of the official fan club would receive an exclusive flexi-disc carrying messages from John, Paul, George and Ringo.

  He had meant it as a single piece of damage control. Instead it grew into an eagerly anticipated annual event. Soon his duties would carry him well beyond the fan club office and onto the road.

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• 6. On the Road

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  In 1965 and 1966, Barrow travelled the globe with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. These were the Beatles' biggest, most lucrative and most dangerous international concert tours. Wherever the group stopped, he conducted the enormous daily press conferences. When they returned home, he arranged their media interviews and photo shoots.

  Barrow also went with them to Elvis Presley's home in Bel Air, California. The very private meeting there was described as a "summit of the giants".

  At the end of 1967, one of his last jobs as Press Officer was to compile and edit the strip-cartoon story booklet in the "Magical Mystery Tour" recording package. Within a year, the business structure around him would be gone.

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• 7. After the Beatles

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  In 1968, one year after Brian Epstein died, the Beatles set up their own self-management operation, Apple Corps. Barrow's role as their publicist became redundant. He left NEMS Enterprises and founded his own show business PR consultancy, Tony Barrow International. It was headquartered in London's Mayfair district, with a sister company called Tony Barrow Management.

  During the 1970s, the two firms represented many British entertainers and recording artists. They included the Kinks, the Bay City Rollers, the New Seekers, Bob Monkhouse and Hello. They also handled the European tours of American acts such as David Cassidy, Gladys Knight, David Soul, the Monkees, Tony Bennett, the Jackson Five, Andy Williams and Neil Sedaka.

  By 1980, a changing music scene had pushed him toward the exit.

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• 8. Return to Writing

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  In 1980, Barrow quit the PR business and went back to freelance journalism. He gave as part of his reason a dislike of the unsavory images projected by the era's new wave of punk bands.

  His books included a career guide, Inside The Music Business, co-authored with Julian Newby. He also wrote a memoir of the 1960s, John, Paul, George, Ringo & Me. Its full title is John, Paul, George, Ringo and Me: The Real Beatles Story, and it appeared in 2006. In 1999 he had published The Making of the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour.

  By 2007, Barrow was the last surviving professional writer from the Beatles' original inner circle of business aides and associates. He kept accepting selected writing and broadcasting assignments, some tied directly to his Beatles years.

  Newspaper reports said he died at his home in Morecambe, Lancashire. In fact, Barrow died in the Royal Lancaster Infirmary on the 14th of May 2016, three days after his 80th birthday.

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